Officials close ramp to ease holiday traffic near O'Hare

November 27, 2006|By FROM NEWS SERVICES

Chicago and state transportation officials experimented with a new way to handle the crush of traffic on Interstate Highway 190--the only road leading in and out of the terminals at O'Hare--during the busy holiday week.

The goal was to reduce the number of vehicles using I-190, sometimes called the "O'Hare Strangler," by temporarily closing the I-190 ramp to the Northwest Tollway (Interstate Highway 90).

The ramp to I-90 was to reopen about midnight Sunday.

Last year, traffic counts on I-190 were up by almost 10,000 vehicles a day on the Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. A total of about 45,000 vehicles a day used I-190 on those two travel days last year, IDOT traffic counts show.

For the first time this year, direct access was closed Sunday, and also from I-190 to westbound I-90 on Monday through Wednesday, to help ease congestion.

The strategy to ease I-190 traffic flow involved rerouting vehicles exiting O'Hare and heading to the westbound Northwest Tollway. The detour from eastbound I-190 to westbound I-90 routed vehicles to Bessie Coleman Drive, then to South Mannheim Road, to eastbound Irving Park Road, to the northbound Tri-State Tollway (Interstate Highway 294) and finally to westbound I-90.

"It was based on a request from O'Hare to help redistribute the traffic coming out of the airport," said Jan Kemp, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, which worked on the detour with IDOT and the Chicago Traffic Management Authority.

Some drivers who used the reroute said it seemed like overkill.

"I have to say the detour was marked well, but it took me awfully far out of my way," said Kendall Wyatt of Hoffman Estates, who drove family members to O'Hare on Wednesday. She said the detour, which she drove about 6 p.m. Wednesday, took almost 10 minutes to reach westbound I-90.

On a return trip to the airport Sunday morning, Wyatt said she was happier using an alternate detour out of O'Hare: taking I-190 to the eastbound Kennedy Expressway (I-90), exiting at Cumberland Avenue and re-entering I-90 westbound.